Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brushed off the prospect of economic sanctions being imposed on his country over its nuclear activities, which he said Iran would continue to pursue in a peaceful program for its power plants. He also said Monday there was no need for talks with the United States over Iraq now that a permanent government had been formed there.

Speaking at a rare news briefing with Iranian and foreign reporters in Tehran that was broadcast live with simultaneous translation, Ahmadinejad said it would be a “mistake” for other countries to introduce sanctions on Iran, adding that its nuclear activities were “transparent” and “peaceful.”

“If they place limitations on us it will be more damaging to them than to us,” Ahmadinejad said. “Our economic foundations are strong. We have built this country ourselves. We have the necessary means to defend ourselves.

“We are not threatening any country,” he said. “We don’t need the language of threats.”

While Iran has maintained its work is for peaceful, industrial purposes, Western analysts have suspected Iran had a second, secret program.

After months of confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program, the prospect of the first face-to-face conversation between the United States and Iran arose in March, when the two sides agreed to hold direct talks on how to halt sectarian violence and restore calm in Iraq.

On Monday, asked whether they should still hold the talks, Ahmadinejad said there was “no need” now that a permanent government was in place in Iraq.

Iran has long supported Iraqi Shiite political parties and maintained personal ties with their leaders. At the time the possibility of the talks were being discussed, the United States had been putting pressure on Shiite leaders to make concessions to Sunni parties as Iraq was trying to form a government.

Last week, a Shiite politician, Jawad al-Maliki, was selected to be Iraq’s first permanent prime minister, and he is now assembling a cabinet.

Ahmadinejad said the Iraqi people should be allowed to “stand on their own two feet.”

On its nuclear program, a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna is due to be released later this week.

Ahmadinejad said in the news briefing that Iran’s nuclear program was “crystal clear” and that his country would continue to work within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA. But he added, “if we feel that there is no benefit for us, we will review our policy.”

The Bush administration called last week for Russia and Europe to penalize Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program if no agreement on sanctions can be reached soon at the U.N. Security Council in May.

R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the administration preferred to work through the Security Council but, failing that effort, “it’s not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future” countries would act on their own “to take collective economic action or collective action on sanctions.”

Some have doubted whether actions by individual nations without Security Council backing would be effective, because Iran could just get what it needed from nations with which it still did business.

“Those who talk about sanctions, if they make such a decision it will be more detrimental to them than to us,” Ahmedinejad said Monday.

“We are pushing ahead,” he said of the nuclear program. “There is no reason why we should suspend.”

He said that continuing the nuclear program was in the country’s national interests and that Iran would remain “steadfast.”

Asked by a reporter who worked for an American television network whether there was anything that foreign countries could do to persuade Iran not to make highly enriched uranium, Ahmadinejad directed the question back at the reporter: “Is there anything the international community can do to induce you to renounce your own independence?

“We don’t want anything from them,” the president said, according to the translation. “Just allow Iran its right. Why do they want the technology and refuse it to Iran? This is home-grown technology.”

Many of the questions appeared to come from Iranian reporters, and they reflected concern about the economy and inflation.

Ahmadinejad declared earlier this month that Iran had joined the group of nuclear nations with the enrichment of uranium at the laboratory level to be used in the country’s power plants.

He also said that Iran is “conducting research” on advanced technology called a P-2 centrifuge, that would quadruple Iran’s enrichment powers in a way that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran’s path to developing a nuclear weapon.

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